A Few Notes to better understand "The Greatest Generation":
(1) The importance of cigarettes in regulating appetite became a practical necessity and was treated as such (this item was far more important than alcohol). Having access to nicotine could compensate for a great deal of the hardships regarding food quality and supply. People should keep this reality in mind when they critique past generations for their smoking habits.
(2) Let us say the average age of an enlisted man in 1942 was about 22 years old (I take just a simple median value from the range of 18 to 25). This means that the typical soldier was born between 1919 and 1920. Safe to say, this puts much of their adolescence through the "Great Depression." For this reason, the austerity that these men knew was reinforced during the war years. By the time they were truly men, their bodies and appetites had been pushed to the limits. Compared to the typical modern lifestyle we enjoy, this disparity between now and then could explain why our boy above faced so much understandable hardship for 3 measly days. Imagine 3 years!
(3) The 1950s were known as an age of consumerist expansion (e.g. the American suburb and the shopping mall were invented then). You might understand here why anti-consumerism had no moral force until the late 1960s. The parents of the Baby Boomers lived through both the Great Depression and the Second World War. The notion that having more was a potential moral problem would have greatly confused them. Historical experience of peer groups shapes cultural perceptions greatly and those perceptions can undergo radical changes in short generational horizons that mirrors economic realities too.
(4) These little exercises of well-meaning internet personalities are a way of studying history in an embodied way. It will necessarily change the way you understand the past and those who lived through particular events. I think they should be performed while studying the documentary remnants of particular periods. To my knowledge, few actually synthesize all of historical reality both above and below the neck.
If there are similar challenges on the Internet of great historical value, please leave a comment with a source!
Thank you, reader!
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